Mainichi: It's been a while....

I know I haven't posted in a long time. I've been busy, ill, and lacking in good/exciting news. I arrived in China last night. I will post more about that another time. For now I want to recap the last week. I had an amazing opportunity to attend some meetings on behalf of my advisor. The meetings were part of a joint US-Japan panel on seismic and wind effects. The participants from both sides were primarily professors and government agency representatives. In terms of age, title, and experience I was way out of my league. But, I was made to feel so welcomed and made some amazing contacts. Many of them kept telling me how lucky I was to be attending the meetings as a graduate student. It was really eye-opening to see how these types of things work. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance and "Mr. Chairman" this and that. It was all very official. I feel like I effectively contributed to the discussions. My presentation went well and was well received. Many people are interested in wireless smart sensors for structural monitoring. It's not a topic that takes a lot to convince people of its merits.

There were three days of meetings and then three days of technical site tours. The site visits included a seismically retrofitted earth-filled dam, the largest arch bridge in Japan, a tsunami breakwater (the deepest underwater construction in the world), fatigue retrofit of steel bridges, a hybrid mass damper on a high rise building. We got amazing access to everything because it was all arranged by the Japanese ministry people. I really enjoyed it. I ate entirely too much. Every night is an excuse to eat and eat with food that just keeps coming and coming. And sake! Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words so here are some from the past week....